What Raging Fire
by DorianGray91
Summary: Raoul has never been more than a childhood friend. Without his rivalry how will Christine and Erik's turbulent, dark, sensual love unravel? An exciting retelling brimming with passion, conflict and exquisite beauty... I'm aiming for professional standard, feedback is encouraged! I have a LOT in store for you guys, edge-of-your-seat reading guaranteed.
1. The Student's Debut

**1  
The Student's Debut**

A hundred faces bent upwards towards me from the stalls; a hundred more leaned down from the boxes and the circles.

Countless white faces, like the buds of pale exotic blossoms, each transfixed in a blissful state of sensation, as though I were the sun glistening down upon them, their life source. Their petal lips curled into smiles, their leaves seemed to lift with sheer ecstasy, they bloomed with inspired beauty.

All at the sound of my voice. _My _voice.

"_Recall those days, look back on all those times…_"

My every nerve stood crystallised in this pure moment. I could have stretched my shoulders and burst musical white wings from my back, right then, and soared away on the sheer gorgeous notes and the surging of my lungs. I had never felt so heightened or utterly liberated, so recognised and yet solitary in my own joy.

"_Think of those things we'll never do._"

One thought, only one thought caused all of this, caused my throat to open smoothly and my muscles to push out every last breath of song within me. A thought that made my heart dance against my breast and stretched my moving lips into an incandescent smile. A thought that lifted me to the painted cherubs and luminous clouds above, above everything.

_He will be so pleased!_

I could barely restrain the wriggling glee that every transcendent instant brought. Somewhere here, perhaps even beside me now, invisible, the Angel of Music was delighting in my success. He was waiting to lavish praise upon me, waiting to raise his voice for pleasure and pride in my name.

"_There will never be a day, when I won't think of you!"_

Perhaps, perhaps this time – as reward, as a special treat – he would appear to me at last. Would he look just like Father?

Would he have a kindly face with dark curls and warm dark eyes? Would he carry with him the violin that Father loved?  
Would he have a halo and wings, would he wear robes of white as all the pictures did?

"_Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade, they have their seasons, so do we._"

My carefree, floating gaze brushed over Raoul in his box for just a moment. His eyes greeted mine and he smiled, a conspirator's smile that only childhood friends are allowed to share. But I was above him, in this moment. I was above all things, in the midst of Heaven itself.

The crescendo was so simple and so easy, I barely thought of it. My well-trained muscles did the work for me, breathing and controlling the air with all the sweet abandon of childish triumph. I knew I had done superbly. I knew that I had captivated hundreds of people, that they quite suddenly loved me for my talents. But _his_ love was worth ten audiences and more, and our next encounter was mere hours away, and I was impatient.

Flowers of all assortments and colours and beauties soared through the air towards me – a hundred manifested compliments. It was over. I had done it. I had made him the proudest Angel in all of Paradise. How we would laugh and weep for joy together tonight! How glorious and worthy I would feel, bathed and basking in his ethereal love, the only love that mattered in the wide wide world.

And he would pass the news of my triumph on to dear Father, who would be beside himself in delight and pride, in his comfortable candlelit rooms in Heaven. How beautiful, how wonderful the image was. He would play his violin for weeks to come in celebration, merry tunes that he used to pluck and stroke away for our amusement, in those long attic nights at home.

The curtain was falling, and instantly I found myself flocked by chirruping ballet dancers and well-wishing singers. All wanted to praise me.

Grinning and bowing with as much grace as I could muster, I edged and edged until a gap opened, and fled so nimbly my absconding was scarcely noticed at first. Avoiding the sound of my name echoing after me, I rushed down, down to the cool refuge of the chapel, where the candles were few and flickering, and the images of seraphs hovered everywhere - in the delicious glass stained window, in the alcove where the lights glowed brightest. I knelt.

"Angel! Angel, I am here." I called enthusiastically, though softly – lest anyone else should find and interrupt me, "I am waiting here!"

He would arrive soon enough, I knew. He came when he wished, and I came when I was told.  
I never minded. I loved to be called, loved to be instructed and coddled and adored with a fatherly patience. It had always been this way with us.

In some strange way that often made me shiver nowadays, I loved not only to obey, but to subjugate myself wholly unto that resounding masculine will, to give myself up in everything to him. Because he was not only an Angel, but a man. A man devoted to me. Before I slept in the dead of night, tired from our training, I would wonder gently, secretly to myself about the nature of angels. Did they age, or were they forever young and beautiful? Surely the latter. Did they love only in the celestial sense? Was it against God's law to love a mortal girl so closely? Was my Angel breaking any of the rules of Heaven to be with me always, or was he my Guardian, sworn solely to protect me?

What would happen if I ever found a handsome boy?  
Would my Angel be jealous or cautious or gracious?

I lit a candle beside my Father's old portrait, enjoying the feel of the billowing white folds of my stage gown around me.

Was my Angel handsome, if he didn't look like Father after all?

"_Bravo, bravo, bravissimi_…"

At last, his elegant tones echoed around the tiny stone room, and drew my soul out of its hiding place. I felt him infusing every fibre of his pride and doting love into my body, my breast rose for awed breathlessness. At last, at last!

But then - suddenly - clumsy wide footfalls drummed upon the stairs.

"Christine. Christine?"

Meg! Couldn't she leave me be for a moment?

The Angel was already slipping away; I could feel his presence fading, fading back into the ethereal. _Don't go, _I begged with my soul, but he was gone.

"Where in the _world _have you been hiding?"  
I forced a clumsy smile, giving off the impression of pleasant surprise as I roiled within.

Later, I would hear him.  
Later.


	2. Reunion, Revelation

Thank you for your support so far, lovely readers! It's going to get exciting soon :') Constructive criticism is very welcome!

* * *

**2  
Reunion, Revelation**

"You did very well, my dear. He is pleased with you."

An unusual gift for an Angel. I tentatively lifted the rose from Madam's hands, rubbing the silken black ribbon between my fingers. It seemed to say so much – there was something about it – but quite what, I didn't know. My careful guardian flashed a mild smile at me before retreating.

Carlotta's old dressing room was resplendent with roses of every colour – peachy pink, creamy white, luminous red. All were open and curling, in full bloom. I could barely move for them. The rose in my hand was a far deeper crimson, a hostile blood-hue, still wrapped in its young petals, barely out of the bud. Its difference to every other flower, its singularity where all others were in bunches, attracted and intrigued me.

The Angel of Music knew me best.

At last, I was alone. As alone as I could be with my avid worshippers buzzing and rustling just outside, most of them elderly gentlemen. It was always the way. I had no intention of greeting any of them.

I had no sooner sat down at the vanity – clutching the rose to study its supple rich beauty in the candlelight and delve freely into its hidden meanings, my heart quickening with curiosity – when the door was pushed open again. Intent upon the mysterious flower, I ignored my intruder.

"Little Lottie let her mind wander."  
At that voice, I broke away and glanced up. A childhood friend was not to be neglected. The same conspirator's grin greeted me as he let himself in, hands folded casually behind his back. He had changed, but he was the same as always.

"Little Lottie thought, am I fonder of dolls or of goblins or shoes?"  
"Good evening to you, too."  
"Or of riddles, or frocks?"

Raoul. He hadn't lost his taste for teasing – though he was much less abrasive now than as a boy.  
I had often hated him for hours at a time in sheer frustration of his impish behaviour.

"Those picnics in the attic."  
"Or of _chocolates_."  
I chuckled despite my humiliation. "Please don't remind me."  
"You _have_ gotten thinner since I last saw you."

He didn't kneel to address me eye to eye. He was too familiar for that. I simply sat and looked up at him, enjoying his presence.  
He felt like home, as though we were back in that attic with chubby, rosy cheeks and glinting mischievous eyes.

"Father playing the violin," I murmured.  
"As we read to each other! Dark stories of the North."

He cast a cursory glance upon the rose, and I realised I was still fondling it absent-mindedly.

"A particular admirer?"  
"Not exactly."  
"Intriguing."  
"Don't pry, you are as disrespectful as ever."

He beamed to confirm it.  
"What awful fate has thrown us together! The place will be in flames within a week. I look forward to the terrific fights, don't you?"  
"I am more a lady than I was. I shan't be fighting anybody."  
"You have obviously forgotten me."

I laughed aloud, almost accidentally.

"Shall I make a peace offering in advance by taking you to supper?"  
"No, thank you. I am occupied."

"Aha!" he cried, "I knew it. Who is he?"  
I blushed dreadfully, not because of Raoul, but because the Angel may be listening even now. What would he say to this?  
What if he guessed the queer places my thoughts had been venturing to recently?

"It's no business of yours," I changed the subject quickly. "What do you think of the new managers?"  
"What, Andre and Firmin? A pair of ambitious fools, I fear. But I'm sure," he lowered his voice jokingly, "the opera ghost will take care of that."

"Don't tell me you are superstitious too!"  
"Little Lottie! You mean to tell me you spent all those years believing in goblins but you would refuse the idea of a musical phantom?"  
"Raoul, be serious."  
"I would much rather not. You used to have fun, too."

He was right. I didn't feel witty. I hadn't felt really mirthful in an age. The Angel was solemn though gentle, and my tutoring so strict. Even Meg was so focused upon our dancing – but the rest of them were chirruping idiots. Perhaps Raoul would be the one to fill me with real laughter again, after all this time. I revealed this to him with a familiar smirk, and without bothering me further he took his leave.

"Be more cheerful, little Lottie. I shall see you often! Goodbye for now!"

As he shut the door behind me, a shiver surged down my back and my hair began to tingle at the roots. I could feel somebody else, I could feel somebody within the room. An aggressive aura perforated the very air I breathed. It was cold. Deadly. But only a feeling. Only a feeling.

Shaking the sudden dread from me, I ducked behind the dressing screen to change out of my bulky costume. My stomach twinged with slight hunger. I would ask Madam Giry to arrange a small supper for me here.

My hand was upon the door knob – but then – I knew. The eyes, the invisible eyes upon me, were his. They could be nobody else's. The threatening, bristling atmosphere evaporated as soon as I recognised him, replaced by the honey-warm caress of his company. Delight seeped through me and I drew my hand back immediately, awaiting the washes of his praise, the golden splendour of his heavenly voice.

"_An insolent friend you have there,_" his words hummed musically, half in speech, half in song, "_I hope he shan't distract you from your duties_."

Eager to terminate the subject and move onto our celebrations, I turned back to the empty room. He always liked me to sing to him. He said I had great potential as a composer; the melodies I improvised were so sweet and endearing. I only knew that I sang the notes he made me feel. It was all him, really. Only him.

"_Angel I hear you; speak, I listen. For you, I shall not falter."  
__Aren't you proud? Aren't you proud? _I wished with all my might, only wanting to hear his approval. "_Angel, my heart is opened to you – enter at last, Master?_"

Charmed, he picked up my tune with ease and made it his own, filling my soul with the echoes of my own love.

"_Flattering child, you shall know me; see why in shadow I hide._"

Another vibration made its way rapidly up my spine, chill and somehow terrifying for just a moment.

Gazing out across the room, I caught a movement in the mirror that _was not my own_.

As though to confirm it, his tones reverberated more confidently, rising in pitch and beauty. "_Look at your face in the mirror… I am there, inside!_"

The realisation struck me like a blow to the head. I was abruptly dizzy, so light-headed, so transfixed. It was as though I floated, I was floating on sheer mist and air towards the double reflection in that glass. My figure approached the mysterious other who towered above me – I did not catch my own expression in the glass, though it must have been one of utter disbelief and wondrous awe as I advanced slowly. My mouth betrayed me, would not move with the words I wanted so to sing aloud to him. _Angel of Music, guide and guardian! Grant to me your glory!_

His image was blurred, silky and dark, mystical, and not at all like I had imagined – but it didn't matter, somehow none of it mattered. Deep, thrilling things were blending and waking within me. Ecstasy and curiosity and wild abandon were coursing through me, pulling me towards his image as though my blood were magnetised to him.

He was not my father. And for some reason, that was better. That was everything.  
_Angel of Music, hide no longer..._

"Come to me, strange angel." I uttered, finally, in a voice I didn't know – a low, resounding voice that seemed to come from my core rather than my lungs.

A black-clad hand was extended towards me, the mist was swirling clear of his outline, and I could see his face. His shrouded, cryptic, horrifyingly handsome face. Two great stormcloud eyes flashed and darkened at me, the lights in them like luminous white sails tossed by monstrous waves.

"_I am your Angel of Music… Come to me, Angel of Music_."

It was a command, not a request. I stretched out my own hand, quivering from head to foot, until my fingers were suddenly clasped in his leather grip, and I was his. Conquered, subdued, willingly, entirely his.

He led me through the mirror. I stepped straight through the glass just like a ghost – into the dark unknown.


	3. Shape in the Shadows

As much as I love the dialogue-songs, they don't work well on the page - and I don't want to bore you all with repetition of the same words you've heard already. So here goes, it's utterly my version of alternate events now, even the parts that could easily have been exactly the same. Enjoy!

* * *

**3  
Shape in the Shadows**

Apparitions melted away into a black pool that was more emptiness than colour.

My body began to remember its own weight and life; I felt my lungs and my heart in motion.  
The darkness transformed to a sulky shade of red; candlelight dimly seeping through my eyelids.

I lay in quiet the forgetfulness between dreams and truth, lazily content. Accustoming slowly, I sensed the velvet texture of sheets and the chill tangy air, the tinkling beauty of music, and the vast spaces gently echoing around me. Its unfamiliarity stirred my nerves into action.

I opened my eyes to primeval luxury.

Startled, I blinked at the small cross-legged monkey in Oriental robes beside me. He smiled a smile of innocence, clanging cymbals together in time to a sweet music-box melody. I caught myself believing I was still asleep. It was such an odd little thing. How did this in any way comply to the dark, threatening mystery of the man who had led me here last night, pouring forth such glorious and petrifying song?

_Last night_. Was it still night? Or morning, or afternoon?

A black swathe of fabric detached the cosy alcove from the rest of the cavern. So I had slept out of sight, in the privacy of this magnificent bird-shaped cradle. A tasselled rope hung close, and with one tug the curtain receded into the ceiling. I thought about staying here forever, cocooned in crimson velvet where I would be safe.

He was here, somewhere. Waiting.

Fur rugs met the soles of my feet; an exotic Buddha statue watched over the bed in dark metallic silence. The cool pastel green of the lake reflected every point of candlelight and made the entire cavern luminous and strange and attractive. My eyes dragged over the steps down to the rich hangings.

My mirror image was hiding there, in the flesh, a perfect doll – amongst other foreign artistic delights.

Past this dip the steps ascended again… A labyrinth of hot, sharp candles, littered with items peculiar and wonderful: a small horse statue, a bronze eagle perched, a male bust with a sash about his head. And an organ.

And _at_ the organ, amidst haphazard pages scrawled with bars and notes and words… Sitting as complacently as any man, in clothes like any man.

He was real.

His very image, the simple picture upon my eyes, sent a jolt of indescribable _something _from my heart to my stomach and back again. I advanced as softly as I could but he was keen as a hunted thing, and his head snapped about while I was still descending the first steps. His angular, clear-cut jaw tightened for a moment, his eyebrows arching into a half-frown that made his expression fathomless. He was real, and he was no Angel.

But what an achingly handsome impostor he was! And despite my situation I couldn't gather any anger to me.  
It fell away, evaporated by the burning glow that assaulted my body at its core.

I couldn't help it. I moved towards him.


	4. Face in the Mask

**4  
Face in the Mask**

He showed me the dark glossy back of his head again, and sounds were born from his fingers as his hands floated across the black and ivory keys, moving like ghosts, barely touching, almost caressing.

The mask. What was it for? Was he hiding an identity, or shrouding himself in alluring mystery for my benefit?

Who was this man?  
Who was this non-Angel?

The memory of Raoul's teasing expression beckoned me to the truth, but I didn't want to acknowledge it. Not yet. That would be like moving from one dream to another. And how I should feel, at being so willingly deceived! For all these years. All this familiarity, this relationship so intricately grounded, based upon a lie as delicate and transparent as glass. And still, somehow, I could not be angry. Only seized by wonder. The organ's melody tempted me in with a tender honeyed timbre; it created an audible halo around him, as though within his music he was rendered celestial and unique. Neither Angel nor man, but somewhere in between. My gut twisted with excruciating coyness – I almost halted as his presence became unbearably holy and beautiful, the notes rising in pitches of exquisite purity.

But why was I shy? This man – Angel – creature – had held me fast to his body in the witching hours of the night, his resonant prevailing voice had powered about the cavern and soaked into my very being like an awful, heavenly drug. He had sung so fondly of my _belonging_ to him… of the essential need that I submit to his twilight world, his world of music; that I allow all the pleasurable things in the universe to be lavished upon me by the might and glory of his compositions.

Did that mean I was a prisoner here?

I was so close to him that my breath stirred strands of his black hair. For a time I watched his hands, coaxing loveliness from the keys as if drawing water from a well, effortlessly, almost logically in his perfect execution. Broad, quick, powerful, intuitive.

"Who are you?" My voice was cold and fragile in the stony space about us – a reflection of the lake and its iron gate beyond. Fear rebounded through the air, fear mesmerised under its keeper's predatory gaze. He stirred slightly at my question, but didn't answer. Didn't quit his music. His silence was loud.

I could stretch my hand out a mere few inches to touch his shoulder if I wanted to. It was there, the movement, already happening in my mind; my fingers itched to curl over that broad collar, the pristine black jacket, his sharp silhouette. To know his existence as I knew it last night, to feel some part of his electric self infuse into me, the shock of contact. My hand hovered. He seemed to have become as stiff and inert as the decorative sculptures, despite his flowing fingers across the organ. He could sense my raw urge to touch, my hesitating wish.

He felt it, too.

I had expected my Angel to be airborne and miraculous. I had expected to be grovelling at his bare feet, basking in his Otherness, in a pleasure separate from body, a pleasure white and clean and triumphant. Here, now, it was as though someone had thrown a blanket over my mind while my entire frame was rocked with nervous, shuddering _feeling_. My thoughts had no form.

Only my instincts forced me teetering on the edge of action and at the same time tugged me back, away from the danger. Pleasure was inherent, innate, in all this feeling. Though it was more like _anticipation_ of pleasure. But there was nothing metaphysical about it. It spooked me.

His music played me like a puppet, reaching down to gore at my insides mercilessly, stirring me up into an unstoppable whirlwind. His averted body enticed and vibrated me. Every hair on my skin stood erected and shivering, charging my limbs and my torso to breaking point. The air between us crackled.

"Who are you?" I repeated, trying to lace my tone with fierce demand.

I felt him smiling. "I am your Angel. Don't you recognise me?"

His voice was really edged with sardonic humour, a danger enfolded in his amusement. He sapped my hardness and power away from me as easily as plucking petals from a flower. I realised I wasn't behaving as he wanted.

My hand jerked of its own accord – and I had touched him.

Tentative, light, my interaction with his body matched his treatment of the organ – though the organ and I were the same in our female subjection to his masculine will, while he caressed with delicious dominance. We three stood there, immersed in this strange triangular communion, as though something occult was occurring. My fingertips skimmed his shoulder, he stroked the keys expertly, and their music extended soft fingers around my soul, holding it aloft.

"You play as if Heaven were speaking to you."  
My whisper was intrusive and tense, let loose in the tranquillity of the moment, but it had to be said. It had to be there, in the air between us. That I worshipped him utterly, that somewhere behind his myriad of masks, he truly, fervently was my Angel still.

He sighed with simultaneous despondency and satisfaction. The notes turned and twisted out of emotions I didn't fully understand. When he answered, it was an accompaniment to the deep thrumming melody of the organ, and it seemed his native language _was _in song. It was too simply beautiful to be pretentious. My jaw slackened in astonishment at the sound.

"_Angels whisper to me only when  
Christine's voice resounds, the sound,  
The glorious sounds of Heaven,_" _  
_"_And all the world is whole as it is round._"  
His head turned, that I could catch the glint of adoration in his eye.

I had unconsciously placed my other hand upon him; now my palms ventured along the tops of his shoulders, my knuckles turned to rub against his neck. It was an insane desire to give him pleasure. Tender to excruciation. I wondered that his mask did not fall away, with the motion of his speech and his song.

He arched gladly into each touch, like a purring cat… malleable and comforted in my hold.

"It _is_ you," I stated, wonderingly. "It has been you all along, hasn't it?"  
He didn't have to answer.  
My voice gave me away, as I sought reassurance from the one who had always assured me. "Should I be afraid of you?"

Still captured in the throes of his music, I angled his face up to mine – copied the strong outline of his jaw with one finger – cradling his head in my free palm. His eyelids slid lazily back, his dark inchoate eyes looked steadily up at me, one from the depths of the mask.

"No harm will ever come to you while I live."  
"But you aren't a holy creature."  
"I have been a holy man for your sake, since we first met."  
"Yes," I murmured, and the tone of my own words scared me. I had never sounded like this. "But you have changed tonight."

The song halted. He had turned his whole attention upon me. "You mean I do not dress all in _white_, as you expected," he smirked into my caress, and a jolt of intimacy passed through me. "Forgive me when I say that it would be much harder to conceal myself."

The white shirt he wore, baring his bronze flesh, was then apparently for leisure wear. Carelessly, encouraged by his gentle charm, I pulled the jacket from his arms in one slow motion. It heaped upon the floor like a shed skin. I regarded him in quiet mocking criticism.

"But white suits you so." I said, honestly.  
He blinked, as though I had said something obscene.

"You find me…?" he struggled, and was suddenly weak, weak as a kitten.  
I tried not to shy away, though fear had flared up in me again at the collapse of our easy humour.  
"You think – it suits me."  
"Yes."

Again he flinched slightly, as if I dangled a snake in front of him.  
He looked like he wanted to ask another question, but thought better, and instead attempted to recline again. In turn I encroached upon him, testing every inch between us. Only when he inclined his neck towards me did I resume our contact, my heart slamming against my breast.

"Besides," I breathed, a half-giggle, "If white is so unpractical I wonder why you wear this."

My fingernails slipped under the edge of his disguise.  
Though the mystery of his identity was delicious, I craved more to reveal him, to see the symmetry of his handsome features, to know him fully.

It was pulled away from his skin before he could react, before he could grab it back.

Too late.


	5. Unleashed

**5  
Unleashed**

Time fractured away from us.  
We were stranded in a cold pit, a pit that was lodged in my stomach.  
I saw him. The porcelain remained clutched in my hand, but it was irreversible.

"NO!" he roared, his fingers swiping for the mask. Too late, too late.

With incalculable strength his body swung against mine as he shot up. I was flung onto my side. The cold stone bit against my flesh, bruising on impact. He seemed to flee, but couldn't go far. I lay recoiling from that face, its contortion of ferocious anger, scorn, hatred. He had looked at me with _hatred_. The hatred of a beast in the trap, its wounded rage, its roaring guttural malevolence.

He had thrown a candelabra over with the force of godly wrath, and come to a frenzied halt at the edge of the lake. "DAMN YOU! _**DAMN **_**YOU**!"

All Hell opened up in his cry – for a moment he seemed as Lucifer himself, cloaked in the flames of the sharp hot candles, with his back to me.

"Meddlesome wretch, you ignorant fool!" He towered and burned. "Do you know what you've done?!"

I hoped to sink into the floor and suffocate. Better still – I hoped for Meg or Raoul or anybody to arrive, impossibly, to rescue me.

The side of his face was clasped and covered in his right hand. His entire frame seemed to slowly cave in upon itself, deflating from the monstrous body of power he had unleashed just moments ago. "What were you expecting? What were you _thinking_?"

Only half-turning to regard me with his good side, his glare whipped through my skin. His grimace was awful to look upon – more awful than his distortion. I folded hopelessly under his baleful temper. "Will you say nothing?"

I tasted salt water as I opened my mouth, and found my voice stolen.  
He made a noise as though I had thrust a blade through his chest with my own hands. "Is it so awful - even you cannot forgive it?"

_No_, I shrieked wordlessly, _show me again, now that your face isn't so angry. Show me again.  
_I shook my head as best I could.

"Don't coddle me. I am a beast, I am hideous." He moved as one in a trance, dragging slow feet to the steps where he sat down heavily. "Now you have seen me you can't be free. Not ever again. Do you understand?"

I didn't. But the cave abruptly seemed a tiny hole, a close claustrophobic thing, and my breath stopped in my throat.

"Don't be afraid," he said impulsively, and then laughed at himself, a hard mocking laugh. "Don't fear the monster. I told you no harm would come to you while I lived."

There was finally silence. He had run out of gusto, and now sat like a man defeated. I wanted to make some consoling gesture, but feared his lashing hands. He was like a magnet, a central collapsing force that pulled all my focus into him even while he most repelled me, even while I felt afraid to look. I just watched him, obediently waiting. His head was ducked into his palms, so low that his forehead scraped his knees.

"_Christine_." His speech was thick and viscous with distress. He was crying. "Can you ever think of me without revulsion? I am a gargoyle. A carcass…"  
He raised pleading eyes to me and every ounce of fear was extracted from my body. I was heavy with emptiness.  
"But secretly I crave – Christine – you will learn to see past it, if you allow me to show you. I _love _– I _yearn_ – I am a man, I am any man."

Yes, the man was there, the mask of horror gone. He could have been any heartbroken being.  
… To walk alone for all of one's life, in the darkness.

Hope seared in his widened eyes. He flickered towards me like a tongue of fire in a high breeze, uncertain.  
"Fear can turn to love. You will understand how I ache for beauty – to be good, for you. You'll see."

I detested myself for my silence. I was wretched. But still I said nothing. Again he crumbled, the spark went out, and he hunched desolate.  
His murmur echoed like dull music around the watery space, my name piercing, like a holy relic in his mouth. "_Oh, Christine..._"

_To walk alone. For all of one's life. In the darkness._

Suddenly, with a surge of self-depreciating guilt and sorrow, I extended the mask towards him. It was the most I could give. His dignity mattered more than mine.

He looked at my hand as though he were being offered love – a look of pure bewildered gratified sadness – and accepted the porcelain, shakily replacing it over his face. Then, like a soldier, he straightened to his usual authoritative height and stood over me.

"Come," he rumbled, clearing the tears from his throat, "we must return. Those fools who run my theatre will be missing you."

As I had stepped like a ghost through that mirror, I now stepped like a wistful obedient spirit into the boat. His hand grasped mine just as it had done, with only a slight tremor. He dropped me like a beetle, though, once I was seated safely. As though _I_ were the ugly one. The sculpted rocks scowled accusingly – the bare men that strained to support the Opera foundations seemed to gasp under the weight of his misery.

I felt it as a far-off thing.

The nightmare was ending. I would be in the dressing room soon, diving back into life as though surfacing from deep waters. I was, after all, only a spectre. He had turned me into a spectre like himself. And when I awoke from this strangeness, I would become a living soul again, separate from his underworld and his pain. I would go on as before. I would.

But still, as he strode coldly before me up the winding passages, I wanted to ask him to show me again. He had been so angry. Now, his tousled hair and the loose white shirt that breezed about him made him look like a free thing, like the epitome of careless beauty. How deceptive appearances could be.

He refrained from any tokens of affection as we parted at my mirror – the tunnel looked dank and dirty without his musical charms glossed over it.  
He nodded once, stiffly. Then he turned on his heel, and marched away.

_Come back. Come back and show me, it's not the end of everything_, I barely murmured within myself. I hungered for redemption, as he vanished softly around a corner. I hungered to fold myself into him, to silently redeem myself to the devil-faced man, to bring back something of the guardian Angel who would have shielded me from all harms such as this. I pushed the mirror a little further aside, and re-entered the world.

A sliding door, after all that. I was never a ghost at all.


	6. A Conspirator & A Patron

**6  
A Conspirator & A Patron**

His black-ribboned rose lay on the dressing table, undisturbed, exactly as it had been before all of this.  
I wanted to throw it across the room, plunge it into anonymity, amongst the other flowers.

I had no sooner sat down than a knocking at the door jolted me up again with nervous guilt. "Who is it?"

It opened without an answer. The vexation only made the hysteria rise more forcibly in my throat.  
Her lilting voice reached me before I saw her. "You have returned."  
So serene, so confident, as though she had been expecting me. Even expecting my absence.

In the next moment she had caught sight of my expression. Then she was kneeling at my side, with her familiar scent of delicate Parisian perfume and formal mourning garments. She had never been motherly – like the Angel she had guided me from a distance – and even now her concern, though earnest, seemed cool. Her hand on my arm was only static and symbolic. "He was not unkind to you?" she asked brusquely.

She knew it all. Of course she did. Now it stared me in the face I saw her designs, how she had constructed so many things to his success. From her allowances about my visits to the chapel, to her questions about the my tutoring, to the rose. She was in league with him. It fell on me inescapably then, because her being in league with both my Angel and the Opera Ghost could not be coincidental. It couldn't be separate.

The tears started to my eyes more fiercely than they had in the cavern, and I found myself hunched over the vanity crying for my life, the stupid rose clutched in my hands as though it were my only hope, or as though I would crush it for sheer loathing.

"Christine, Christine." She patted my hand.

"Tell me what is _happening_ to me," I spluttered pathetically, "tell me what it means."  
I couldn't go further than that. A thousand points leapt out yelling to be justified, but the whole scope of the thing was too bewildered and awful.

I just needed to understand the plain facts and dispel these useless mysteries.

"It only means you are loved with an angel's heart - in human flesh." she answered fondly.  
I turned from her in disgust. More vagueness – but it told me the truth that she daren't admit openly.

"How foolish of me," I said at large, "how childish."

Silence dipped over us.  
Eventually she gave out a sigh, and withdrew her hand.

"If I tell you his story, will you tell me of your visit?"

I loathed this woman, in this moment. Loathed her for aiding him. But more, I loathed her for allowing me to hurt him by not preparing me for the truth. Whose fault was it that he sat now in torment? She seemed willing to help me mend it. I jerked my head in consent.

So she seated herself at the vanity, gathered her skirts more comfortably, and began.

* * *

The match's sputtering flame died down momentarily as it was passed to the candle. Soft light flared up to warm the chapel with colour.

Strange that I should need to come here to think. This was our frequent meeting place, mine and the Angel's.  
Mine and the Ghost's.  
Mine and the outcast's.

Of course it would be me who would befriend – adore – the only other outcast in the building. And somehow the shame of it was overshadowed by my sadness for _him_, for the liar who had influenced me invisibly these past years. Because if_ I_ was his target – nobody else – and _I_ was the outcast without a family, what hope did he have of acceptance from the multitudes? If _I_ shuddered with repulsion at the thought of that raging red face, the devil's expression incarnate in the twisted skin, how could any ordinary person offer their sympathies?

Footsteps on the winding staircase above made me jump again – I was too highly strung. I expected every surprise to be him, though he would never make a sound, and though I wanted to see nobody _but_ him.

"Is there a Little Lottie hiding down here?"

I took it all back. Raoul was welcome, as welcome as family. I offered him a wan smile.

"You gave me quite a fright, you know. Mame Giry told me you would see no-one. But her daughter relented."  
"Oh, Meg."  
"All I know is that I received an anonymous letter this morning. About you. I took a hansom at once."

He thrust it into my hands as he knelt and scrutinised me.

"_The Angel of Music has taken Miss Daa__é under his wing. Be warned: her business is her_ _own_."

I didn't know what I felt about this. Again I supposed I should be angry, but I couldn't muster it up. I only felt frightened – of myself as much as anything.

"Well?" He levelled his gaze at me so that I couldn't get away. "When I got to the foyer the managers informed me you had disappeared – and the next moment, Mame Giry said you had returned. Would you like to tell me about it?"

I was silent for a time. So long that he grew impatient and began to fidget.  
I was simply trying to decide what to tell him first – how on earth to present this to him, so he'd understand.

"His name is Erik. Mame Giry told me." My voice was tremulous and timid. I hated it.  
"Who? The Opera Ghost?"  
I flinched. "Yes, I suppose so."  
"Who demands twenty thousand francs of my donations a month? Who threatens anybody who does not comply to his letters? _He _stole you?"

"I went willingly enough."  
"You don't sound so sure." His cynicism prodded at a hidden part of me that suddenly bit back.  
"I thought you preferred not to be serious."

"I must be serious, when my naïve goblin-loving friend is whisked away from under the Opera's nose. To some unknown shadow by a Ghost of questionable reputation."

"He isn't a ghost. He is the most unfortunate being there ever was. And before that –" I wondered how much I should reveal, "he was my guardian, and my teacher."  
"How is that possible?"  
"He spoke to me, like a – like a ghost, or an angel." I ducked my head. "He taught me to sing, Raoul, I owe him for that. He hasn't done me any harm. But, oh!"  
The haunting vision came to me again and I couldn't speak any longer, mesmerised by terror.

Raoul looked disconcerted. More than I wished he would. "Have you never considered the danger he might pose? What he might _want _from you?"

An involuntary shudder, deep and gorgeous, passed over me. His angular face in my hands had been so – so – delicious, and urging, and _something_.

"I thought he was the Angel of Music, sent by my Father." There. There it was, meek and submissive, laid out at his feet to laugh at.

He did laugh. The room reverberated with his low chuckle. "Only you, Lottie. Only you."  
"He has been with me forever, since I arrived here. I was a child."  
"Of course. I do see it now."

He hesitated, and then let it fall from his mouth. "He didn't try to force himself upon you? Where did he take you? What happened?"

I turned my face away in a spasm of pain. "He didn't."  
A pause while I breathed, then, "He took me to his home. I couldn't tell you where. He sang, and played music while I slept. It is only about the music, to him."

Raoul studied me long and hard, as though trying to peer past the bars that my lies blocked him out with. Then he stood, and backed away towards the door.  
"Well, you are unharmed. That much is clear, and comforting. I only have one request, Lottie."

I finally turned back to him, our stares clashing in the candlelit air between us. Dread filled me.

"Do not see him again," he said, in a low, even voice. "Do not speak to him, or listen to him. I must trust your own wisdom to keep you safe, I can't always be here. If he retreats from you, he is probably harmless. If he pursues you, threatens you… you must tell me. I will take care of it. Ghost or man, he is not the suitor you deserve or desire, let me assure you."

I nodded meekly. "Of course, Raoul. I wouldn't dare see him. I will tell you if he tries."

He smiled, satisfied.  
"He demanded the managers cast you as the Countess. They have ignored him – I only hope it doesn't mean another object falling on Carlotta. Or worse."

Without another word he ascended the staircase, leaving me to the dim room and my dim thoughts.


	7. Where You Long To Be

**7  
Where You Long To Be**

I dragged the sheets around me as I lay my head down for the fourth night of silence.  
Meg's bed was next to mine, and I could feel her eyes on me as she undressed into night clothes. Her mattress creaked as she settled.  
"Are you ever going to talk to me about it?" Her soft tone reached out to me across the gap, curious and concerned.

I pretended to be unconscious. After a few slow seconds, she turned over and gave up. I tried to give up too. Tried not to think, only to rest.  
It didn't work.

It was only as sleep finally caught up with me, when I had forgotten to listen for his voice and began to slip, that it appeared, as close as if he were leaning over me. As a child I'd thought it was in my head. Now I wondered how he managed to throw his words, from what dark recess, so that nobody but me could hear him.

"_Christine… Christine._"  
And it was as though nothing had ever happened. That honey-sweet resonant song, calling to me as though I belonged, as though I were the most precious thing. Tender, protective, alluring, heavenly. I stirred, to let him know I recognised him.

"_My child, I deceived you  
misled and belied you  
and how you believed, you  
loved and received me."_

I couldn't help it. His music was the most handsome, comforting thing I had ever heard. Softer than my Father's voice. More gentle than an Angel's touch. I opened my eyes, sat up in bed. I could hear the repentant sorrow echoing next to me.

"_Do not misgive, child  
within you I live, while  
the darkness here is cold and unforgiving.  
Accept me again, don't  
leave me in pain, won't  
you revive me, my broken soul is waning._"

"I will. I will," I whispered into the night, "I cannot refuse you."  
"Beloved girl. You do not… abhor me?"

I swallowed, hard. It was easier to talk openly to him here, in the relative safety of my bed, when he was being so gentle and pleading.

"I am only frightened of your anger."  
There was a silence, and I cowered in case I had offended him.

"_Roaring lions are afraid  
Of the lambs who pull their manes  
To reveal that which is horrible behind,  
But the roaring is of shame  
From a lion who is tame  
For the lamb unto whose beauty he's resigned."_

"Erik," I breathed, moved so by wistful grief.  
He loved me. He loved me as any heart-broken being could love.  
An intake of breath betrayed him. "If you wish to see me, wait here alone while they go to breakfast."

Something in the air vanished, and I knew that he had retreated. I thought of his triumphant journey to the lake, to his home – of him lying on his red velvet sheets and falling into a deeper sleep, a sleep of comfort. I had made it possible. And that thought carried me, too, into the sleep of comfort… even while I recognised a pleasant, warning twinge in my stomach.

He was happy, and that was all that mattered for now.


	8. Reconciliation

**8  
Reconciliation**

"Hurry, won't you?"  
Meg stood over me, watching me dress with conspicuous slowness. Her eyes had begun to bunch up with inquisitive exasperation whenever she addressed me. I was so painfully obvious. But she wouldn't go away, and I hadn't an excuse.

"Meg!"  
We both started, and looked to the other end of the dormitory.  
Madam Giry cast a cursory glance over me that immediately informed me of her intentions. She knew.  
"Come along." she ordered without another word of explanation.  
"But –"  
"Come along."

Another fleeting look to me, a raised eyebrow – and she was gone, sullen daughter in her wake. Now I hurried to dress. Who knew what crevice he may be watching from? It shouldn't have made my blood surge so violently.

He was either polite or very well-timed. I had just laced my second shoe, when I straightened and found him there quite suddenly, without a sound to betray his presence. I nearly leapt for fright, but suppressed it in case he took it as abhorrence rather than shock. He was cloaked, and dark, like a black panther. All except the white half-mask. Each of us waited for the other to speak.

"You know my name," he almost accused me, at last.  
He stood strained with tension on the balls of his feet, ready to take flight at the first sign of peril. Only his expression contradicted his cold mystery. The jaw hung slightly slack, lips parted, his brow slanting away to shape his eyes into pained uncertainty. They glowed deep, melancholy blue.

"Madame Giry –" I mumbled.  
"What else did she –?" He paused, closing up abruptly. I ducked my head.

It passed between us; I knew his history. He seemed to detest the idea, as if it ruined a part of his appearance, shattered his veil of illusions that he had spent so long constructing. I only thought of how glad I was, that I was closer to understanding him, what he wanted.

"I need to apologise."  
"You needn't," he whipped back.

His chest heaved, and I wondered how he had gained such a ghastly reputation over these years. He was fragile as a kitten, just like I was a feeble fledgling.  
Still, a cat was stronger than a bird, and I quivered with equal transparency before him.

Who most yearned to cross and destroy the space between us? I ached with a child's desire for forgiveness, but he seemed to scorch with a flaming man's need for water. We stood at polar opposites, throbbing man and palpitating girl. Our separateness and unity of feeling twisted in the air. Did he resent my pity? Did he know how deeply it ran? I wanted to draw close to him. I wanted to draw close. But I didn't. I couldn't.

"I listened for you. You've been so quiet." How horribly obvious, how pointless I made it sound.

"I wasn't certain – I intended to give you time, and liberty." A shade passed over his face. "I am not the insolent hounding fool you think –"  
"No... no."

He put forth one tentative foot, treading on quicksand. That was it. I was free to move, free to breathe.

I matched his slow steps until we stood close, in our own halo of radiance, all the rest excluded. I tipped my chin up to look him full in the face.  
"Christine," his gloved hand extended towards me, to touch my throat where the vein pulsed madly.

I caught and arrested it mid-air, and he looked on with hurt confusion. But I only pulled the leather away, so that his exquisite masculine hand softly emerged, proof of his human existence under the disguise. Then I took it in both my own. Folded it out to show the smooth palm. Pressed it to my cheek, leaning into its warm hollow shape. Let his fingers slide into my hair.

His expression never changed; the soft lips still parted, the blue halos still regarding with disbelieving gratitude so sharp it was mournful.  
As for me – I did not think, only acted. And my actions viciously ripped away the last scraps of denial I had.  
I did not regard him with white, metaphysical joy. I did not regard him as my Father.  
He was a man, any man, and more.

"Show me?" I asked, feeling braver than I ever had.  
He seized up, his hand involuntarily clenched in my hair.  
His brow had drawn down, eyes steeling defensively, pin-points of light betraying their dangerous sheen.

"Please," I pursued.  
"Do not torture me."  
"You were so angry. If you'd been calm –"  
"Ha!" he shook his hand free of me. "Calm?! You don't know what you say."

I shook my head hastily. "No. No. I know – how cruel and ignorant it was."  
"You know nothing of cruelty." His voice condescended me now, full of private sadness.

This was too much. My heart tore open for the child, the adolescent, the present Ghost who even now was being whispered repugnantly about. I had to protect him. Purely, simply, vitally, I had to shield him from his past. Recompense him for the violence of those who didn't understand. Every ounce of his pain must be swept away before I died from it. It cut into me too deeply, until I also grimaced in my distress. My hands found his shoulders in a moment – falteringly I slipped my forearms about his neck, making a loose loop. He could escape easily. But he _needed_ to know: he was alone no longer.

Had he ever been held? Had even Madame Giry deigned to comfort him?

The answer was obvious; he shied like a stallion, unwilling to tear away but almost distraught at the unexpected contact. He shivered, and steadied himself. Here my redemption lay, across the short gap still between our bodies. Here was my apology. Our breath swirled around us with life of its own, mute and so fast and heavy. I felt his fingertips like tiny nervous wings against my back, and inched the circle tighter like a loving noose.

Now his torso brushed mine and I took courage, pressing us together, his neck safely clasped in my arms – I nestled my cheek against his collar, nose grazing his throat. I soaked the flavour of cruelty away from him, into my own body. He suppressed a choke of dismay and shuddered long and deep.

Then suddenly my embrace was increased and beautified, as he seemed to gather me into himself, my warmth, my small softness. He drank in my physical being like a dehydrated animal. Lifting my feet clear of the ground he seemed to pour me into him, like wine into a cup. I felt my affections filling him to the brim with unrecognised, tremendous emotion.

"Erik," I was almost swooning and unconscious in his sheer powerful grip, with the insatiable need for our bodies to meld together. Pleasure reacted in my every muscle within his tightening hold. Acutely, almost explicitly intimate, it lasted for days and yet not long enough. "I was afraid," I murmured as he lowered me, just so that my toes could touch the ground. "I need – all I saw was rage, I never had the chance –"

"To what? To study the _beauty _of my _calm _deformity?"

He retreated much more quickly than he had advanced, and I was left alone on the earth, all love and pity poured out of me so that I stood empty of offerings, almost spent. And still it didn't seem to be enough. I tried to keep my voice low. "I am afraid of it. I want to be reconciled. I can't be, without seeing again."

"Do you think another sampling will _cure _you?" he smirked without humour.

He was like a dog so whipped it bit without thought, in sheer blind reflex. There was no convincing or reasoning – he only knew the sharp shame of the past. I remembered the circus, and softened.

"People fear what they don't understand. I understand enough." I encroached upon him, holding up my hands to show that he was safe until he chose otherwise.  
"Yes, from your adopted mother," he sneered. "Even she doesn't know how I came to _be_ there."

Again the urge to close around him like a shell rose up. All worldly pains must be kept away from him; my body was a wall with which he should be sheltered.  
I placed my palms on his chest instead, folding myself into him, wishing he would return it. "Tell me."

He gazed coldly down, measuring the sincerity in my round eyes.  
"Father sold me for fifty francs. My mother didn't say goodbye."

I recoiled and seethed as though stung. I thought of my own Father, and couldn't match the pictures up. My Father would have loved him regardless. My Father would love him now, for being my Angel of Music.

"You see," he smiled sadly into me, "if my own flesh and blood abandoned me what hope is there for you?"  
"I am here," I snapped back, surprising myself, "I have seen your worst and I am here."  
"For how long?"

I took one of his stiff hands shyly. "You cared for _me_ from the day I arrived."

The comparison startled him.  
I gave back the glove softly. I would not press him now. I had ruined our intimacy before with rashness.

"_Il Muto _is a mere day away," he shook himself into a brusque aloofness. "You must be ready."  
"But La Carlotta is the Countess."  
"That is what the managers think."  
I gripped his arm. "You aren't going to hurt her, are you? I shan't perform at all if you do."

He smiled dotingly over my concern.  
"Though I would love to silence her forever, this will be mere jest. I shall take her down a peg, and open up the role to you. You will laugh, I promise."

I tried not to show my trepidation. "Will you coach me in the chapel again?"  
"We could confine your voice to the chapel. Or you could experience a lesson without limitations."

He meant to ask me to go down there with him again. The close claustrophobic feeling battled for dominance over me. But I would be coming back. Erik had proven that I was no prisoner in his underground world. I nodded timidly, and he finally returned my caress.

"Tonight, then. Meet me at the chapel, at the seventh hour." In a flash, he had moved behind one of the bunk beds towards an opposite wall – he was only out of my sight for a split second, but when I moved to catch him, he had vanished. Just like a magician.

Or, indeed, a ghost.


	9. Lessons

**9  
Lessons**

The candles fanned gently, their warm soft radiance surrounding us in a private halo of bliss.

The cavern was high, open, liberating. My voice soared to every corner, to the natural sandy roof, playing across the silky surface of the water and swirling with the mist. I was in flight, I was transformed beyond myself in the cool air and the candlelight and the evening magic. I had never felt this.

I was outside of myself, somehow, and yet closer to my core than I had ever been.  
So this was what it was to live, to really live. As I'd never lived before. Just like he'd promised.

His fingers were flowing like liquid across the keys, gloves abandoned, jacket discarded. The white shirt exposed his neck, his throat, a great v-shaped section of his chest that glowed like nothing else, like magic, in the firelight. Every inch of our skin uncovered was alight and angelic in this mystic brilliance. We stood as though uplifted from humanity. Music and candlelight, the very steps to Heaven.

And it was over. He stopped, and I stopped, and we regarded one another for a moment in our triumph.

"You enjoyed it?" he ventured a smile, the first I'd seen in an age.  
"I felt as though – I don't know. Incredible."  
"Your voice echoes wonderfully here."  
"Thank you. Your playing is – well, it's breathtaking."

Another smile. Only the left side of his face was showing from where I stood – and it was truly dazzling. On impulse, lost in a world of song and fire, I reached out to him. My fingertips stroked his cheek, his jaw, exploring. Only the hard glint in his eye and the way he stiffened stopped me from being bolder. It was like stroking a tiger, a scarcely tamed tiger.

The words welled up in me, and I couldn't keep them at bay. "Why would anybody think you a devil? You're beautiful."

I hadn't expected so violent a reaction. Perhaps I should have.

He tore from me, moving so quickly I cried out and jumped myself. Suddenly he was there, a metre or two away, his broad back and dark hair turned to me. He quivered head to foot, the tension throbbing visibly through his limbs.

Shaking his head, he paced to and fro, to and fro.  
_He won't hurt me, won't hurt me, _I told myself over and over, with each tread of his boot. _Be brave. _No good. I couldn't speak for fright, let alone chase him.

I wasn't afraid of his violence, I realised. I was only afraid of his disapproval. As a child fears a parent, without a hope of understanding, only submitting.  
Only cowering, only waiting for the wrath to pass and die.

"You torture me," he spat, still pacing, turning more and more frequently. "You are grateful for my tutoring. I know that. But there is no need. _No need_."  
"For what?" I stammered.  
He had no answer for me. He only threw me a hateful glance, and finally giving up on pacing, flung himself back into his chair, fists clenched.

I forced sounds out now, with such effort. "For what?... I've said nothing wrong."  
"_Liar_. Save your untruths. Do not injure me with them."  
"Why would I lie to you?"  
"Because!" he was on his feet again, in a whirlwind of desperate rage. "Because you are lying!"

Silence swept over the cavern, taking the echoes of his voice. He glared at me, and I glanced towards and away from him, like a nervous fledgling, never resting. I didn't want to see his anger. Didn't want to look away. "You don't think you are handsome?"

He barked, a barking laugh, hard and unforgiving. "You mock me."  
"I don't!" I cried, pleading.  
"You think I could live with _this_?" he thrust a finger at his mask. "And – and – think of anything but _goblin_, and _brute, Devil's child_?!"

Another pause. We both caught our breath, trying to let the heat escape from our bodies.  
"You can't," I finally replied, in barely a whisper. "You couldn't, but I can."  
"Impossible."  
"No."  
"You have _seen _it! How can you look at me?"  
"I _want_ to."

He growled, though his temper had receded. Again he sat, with his back to me.  
I was wise or cowardly enough to stay put. "You won't believe me?"  
"How can I?"  
"Why should I lie to you?"  
"_Pity_. Some misplaced sense of gratitude. I don't know."

I drew a long breath. Debating with Erik was a field of hidden mines. He exploded at every new step.

"Do you think I am ignorant?" I asked gently. "Do you think I would say this if I wasn't certain?"  
He inclined his head to look at me, over his shoulder.  
"Do you think I want to hurt you?"

His eyes were glassy. "No. I don't think you intend to."  
"Do you think I am practised in deception?"  
"No. You have always been honest."

Leaving my words to settle over him, I took a few tentative steps. He watched me mutely. Like an animal quieted by pain. Nowhere near to acceptance.

"Christine," he choked as I stood before him and took both of his hands in my own. "Please. Say no more."  
He rested his forehead against me, weak with sorrow, dampening my wrists with his tears.  
"You are here, you keep me company. You can bear to be close to me. Please, offer no more. I cannot withstand it. I cannot understand it."

My breath left me all at once. A great awful wave crashed upwards right through my body, surging against my heart, stopping my throat and submerging my head in its dense waters. I felt limp from despair. My eyes stung with hot wet agony. His sadness smote me, ripped me open.

He was so alone, and so afraid, and so miserable. Endless pain showed me its hideous secrets and crippled me.  
Again, I felt the all-consuming urge to make myself a barrier against the world. To protect him forever.

"Erik," I took my hands from his, to circle them around his poor head, my arms cradling his face tenderly to my stomach. Such deep softness stirred inside me, such a craving to hold and comfort him, to console him with my soft body, to feel him slackening into me knowing he was safe, guarded, cared for. "I would never hurt you. I have only wanted your happiness."

His hands clutched at my hips, at the folds of my dress, like a boy still at the apron strings. He was stifling sobs.

I held him, stroked his hair, over and over, in silence.

Until it shifted under my palm - and I realised that it wasn't his hair at all. It was a toupee.

He stiffened as though lightning had just passed through his body. I expected him to spring up at any second. But he seemed slowed by my embrace, stripped of power within my arms. Reluctant to leave the safety of my shelter. It was my chance.

"Erik," I whispered, into the cavern air that held its very breath. "Let me see. Please let me see."


	10. Reprise

**10  
Reprise**

"Please let me see."

He remained cleaved to me, childlike, hiding his face against my front.  
I heard his breathing. In, out, in again, stilted and jagged, hot through my dress. His tremors rocked me.

My Angel clinging to me, below me, robbed of his dignity, at my mercy, shrunk to a cub where the tiger had been. It was so strange. But for the first time since we had met, I wasn't afraid. His silence was a plea, not a rejection. He was pleading for acceptance.

I must see – but in return, I mustn't gasp, I mustn't cringe. I must not even put up a blank façade.  
This was my one and only chance to prove his humanity to him.

Slowly, slowly, I removed the hairpiece.

The real, golden strands underneath were thinner, slightly shorter. They receded on his right side, betraying the darker pigments of twisted skin, slight unnatural bulges. His trembling intensified. He didn't dare look up at me; his agony seemed to seep into me, raw and awful. I studied it for a moment longer, then unable to keep him in suspense, shed the white porcelain from his face.

I knelt, so that he could not hide away against my dress. Controlling his sobs he let himself relax into limp pain, lips ajar as the breath escaped through them, eyelids closing over for fear of catching my expression. Tears trickled from them anyway, running straight over his smooth skin on one side, zigzagging through lines and bumps on the other.

I searched his face steadily, bracing myself against the slight twinge in my stomach. The nose extending sideways, the skin beneath the eye pulled downwards, the bunched flesh under it, the reddened ridged cheek, the missing eyebrow. It was horrid, and yet less horrid than I had imagined. I couldn't say what I had been preparing myself for.

An eternity of punishment for this?  
_To walk alone for all of one's life, in the darkness. For this?_

I touched it. I touched the textured skin, trailed fingers down its uneven shapes. It was just flesh, like my flesh.  
Who was to say what shape things should be, anyway?  
Who was to say that this was ugly? It was the face of a man I worshipped.  
The face of an Angel.

His breath quickened as he felt me lean towards him, as though he expected violence from me. Feeling the wetness splashing from my own eyes now, I simply inclined my head and planted a chaste and lingering kiss upon that coloured surface. His steely blue halos were piercing into me when I retreated, staring me full in the face, entirely cold and blank with shock. For one instinctive moment I thought he would strike me.

But then he bowed forwards, like a falling statue, his head touched my shoulder, and he crumbled into such a fit of weeping that I had to throw my arms around him for fear that he would break or burst. He cried, and cried, and there seemed to be an entire waterfall within him. Now I was the cup, and he the bitter waters of Marah, pouring every long-suppressed year of anguish and loneliness into me. I took it all and was patient, caressing his hair and kissing his head intermittently, intuitively granting him repetitive comfort, the thing every child craves most.

"Christine," he groaned sometimes, and other times, simply, "why?"  
All fear was gone. There was only the union between us now, unobstructed, understanding.

I realised that I had tied myself to him irrevocably, conclusively.  
I did not regret it.

* * *

He helped me from the trap door, concealed in shadow, under the stairwell just outside the chapel.  
"Goodbye," I breathed, smiling with a radiant joy I had never felt before.  
His hand left mine. I could just make out his silhouette in the dark, his keen eyes glittering. "I look forward to your performance."

I wished that he would take me in his arms, but in one swift motion he had descended through the hatch again, and was lost to the inky air. Still, I soared above clouds as I rushed up the stone steps towards the dormitory. It was only then that I heard a stirring down in the chapel.

My voice was hollow and guilty as I called down, getting ready to run if I needed, hoping against hope that it was Madame Giry. "Hello?"  
"Lottie?"  
My breath caught, though my heart slowed. I wasn't certain whether to be nervous of Raoul.  
His face appeared below me, stern and upturned.  
"I was looking for you. It's the middle of the night."  
"Yes."  
"Where were you?"  
"Just praying."

Silence. Then: "Who was praying with you? Outside the chapel?"  
Knowledge dripped from his words. I was helpless. Of course he had heard me.  
"You saw him, after I warned you."

I couldn't argue with him. His commanding tones were too strong for me.  
"Lottie, you know I can't let you become involved with that _thing_."  
"He isn't a _thing_."  
"He is a hazard! He has been plaguing this Opera ever since I became its patron, and before! We have no idea what he may do next. He is deluded, dangerous, not to be tolerated."

I fled, but he pursued me, and his stride was swifter. I cried out as he grabbed my arm.

"Shush, shush," he looked into my face with steady, earnest eyes. "You must try to understand. He isn't to be trusted, you mustn't let him take you down there. Anything could happen. We don't even know what horrors and traps and mazes lie beneath this place."  
"No harm will come to me." I struggled.  
"Is that what he told you?" his voice was rising, "has he forced you in any way? What spell has he put over you?"  
"No spell! Let go!"

He did, but held a warning finger up to me, eyes ever locked on mine.

"You have the power to end this now, while there is still time to break from him. Do not push me to act against you, Christine. I do not want to. But your father's only wish was for your safety and comfort, and you will gain neither of those things mixed up with _him_. He is a criminal, what he does is illegal, and he is likely as not an unstable man – if not a devil or phantom, as they say. _Think _of your father."

An instant passed, and he had said his piece. Free at last, I turned and dashed away from his look, from his wise voice, from his parental concern.

Deep-seated, disconcerting fear had once again engulfed me, and with it the cold cruel hand of uncertainty.


	11. True Distortion

Sorry it's short! But you'll get another update tomorrow. Your reviews are inspiring and delightful, thank you all so much!

* * *

**11  
****True Distortion**

Madame Giry's hands froze, still clutching the laces of my corset. Carlotta's corset. Screams were seeping under the doorway.

A moment later Meg barrelled into the room, expression of pure horror clashing with her garish costume. "Joseph Buquet! Joseph Buquet!" she cried shrilly.

It was all Mame Giry needed to hear. A hand flew to her heart. Her mouth silently trembled around the word "Erik".

"No," I rasped, suddenly feeling the pull of gravity increasing, the warmth being sucked from the room. "No."  
Meg seemed to feel it too, for she fell into a chair, crying out, "The phantom hung him! _On the stage_!"  
"The audience?!" Mame Giry snapped.  
"They must be running by now, if they've any sense!"

Running. I could think of nothing else. Blind, rising panic was taking me. Erik. Capable of murder. Erik ablaze with inhuman wrath.  
Erik, who would now be looking for me. Whether to hurt me or to explain, it didn't matter.

"Christine!" Madame Giry and her daughter called out in chorus.  
But their questioning voices couldn't have stopped me any more than they could have slowed a hunted animal.

I sprang to the door and away. Anywhere. Anywhere. The front doors would be blocked by the audience, moving sluggish and jostling like dumb cattle. And even then, where to run? I was trapped here by my own dependence. Upwards, then. Upwards as though running from a spreading fire, or raging flood waters. From a force of nature.

To the roof. To the last place he would expect me. I wasn't certain if he had even been to the roof before.

* * *

The small arch of the door was in sight, reaching for me, bidding me to run faster, offering freedom.

I wrenched it open, feeling the blast of cold snowy air, real natural air. It shattered the last defences that held me together. Swept straight through me, breaking apart the layers of numb detachment and instinctive panicked shock. I stumbled on into the dark wild landscape of stone figures and distant lights, and finally felt the first tears dashing down my cheeks.

And then, I screamed.

The cloaked silhouette standing before me was not a statue.  
I caught a glimpse of the white mask, like bone, glinting in the scarce starlight. Like a skull, like death.  
I had never felt so afraid of anyone.

He said my name, like an angel's heart breaking, velvet-soft with agony and love. Relinquishing control over my bursting chest, I broke into violent sobs in return. My legs snapped like twigs under me. I recoiled into the cold white blanket of snow like wounded prey, incoherent and helpless. Joseph Buquet's ghost hung about me, leering and swollen-tongued, accusing.

_You could have prevented this._


End file.
